Abstract:
Saying ‘thank you’ is considered an important element of polite behavior, at least in English-speaking societies. Yet recent research shows that, in informal interaction among family and friends across different languages and cultures, people rarely thank a person who has complied with a request — on average, on just one out of twenty occasions. Examining data from informal interaction among speakers of English, German, Italian, Polish, and Telugu, we ask what happens on those rare occasions someone does say ‘thank you’ for complying with a request. The results show that thanking treats another’s assistance as going beyond what could be taken for granted in the circumstances. Coupled with the overall rareness of thanking after requests, this suggests that cooperation is to a great extent governed by expectations of helpfulness — expectations that can be long-standing, or that are built over the course of a particular interaction. At the same time, the relatively higher frequency of thanking in some languages (such as English or Italian) suggests that cultures differ in the importance they place on recognizing another’s agency in providing assistance.
